Switched
by Paris and the Blue Jewel
Summary: A set of drabbles and vignettes. Hayner hates his life, but suddenly finds himself in a parallel universe where he has a boyfriend, a loving family, and loyal friends. What just happened? AU. On indefinite hiatus.
1. The Way It Turned Out

**Author's Notes: **The drabbles and vignettes that follow will not be in any sort of order, but will follow whatever my muse feels like writing about at the time, as per usual with me. This storyline is partly based on a random Seiner idea I had one day, but the idea itself came out of a fake theory I came up with when I was younger. Basically the idea is that what if, instead of memories being subjective like we know they are, it really meant you were in a parallel universe if you remembered something differently from somebody else? And that of course led to the idea of what would happen if you ended up in a universe that wasn't quite so parallel.

The first person to correctly guess who Hayner's brother is will get an extra point for their review! Heather, you're not allowed, since you betaed it. xD

I don't really know how mature this is going to turn out, but I'm rating it M because damnit, what's the point of a Seiner if you don't get a little action between the two of them? In terms of dark themes and that sort of thing, I haven't decided how far to go with the "bad universe" or with the concept of the other Hayner. Suffice it to say that there won't be anything really nasty. Oh, and if you couldn't tell, THIS WILL HAVE SLASH. Love that Seiner.

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><p><strong>The Way It Turned Out<strong>

"Do you ever wish you could go back to the way things used to be?"

"Hm?" Hayner was only half paying attention to Seifer's voice; the rest of his focus was on the way the older boy's fingers were sifting through his hair.

"You know, the parallel universe you came from. Do you wish you could go back?" Seifer's voice was soft, but when Hayner opened his eyes all the way, he saw that the other boy looked very serious.

"I… don't know," Hayner admitted, shifting slightly in his position with his head in Seifer's lap. They were on the couch in his living room, alone for once. "This… this universe is better, but I sometimes worry that it's not where I'm _supposed_ to be. And I don't know what happened to the Hayner who was here originally. Did he go where I came from? It doesn't seem fair."

Seifer shook his head. "I wouldn't worry about that."

"What do you mean?"

Sighing, the older blond pulled his legs up onto the couch and shifted their positions until he was lying against Hayner's back. "I mean that I don't think he liked it here. We were fighting a lot—actually fighting, I mean, not just sparring for fun. I was about ready to break up with him if he didn't get it together."

Hayner smiled faintly. "I guess it must've confused you a lot when I showed up and suddenly everything was great again."

"Shit, you have no idea. I walk into the room ready to punch his face in and you just stare up at me with that shocked expression on your face and say my name in that breathy voice you _know_ turns me on—"

"I didn't know that at the time! Besides, I couldn't think very far beyond 'why is Seifer in my room looking like the god of sex?' " Hayner tilted his head enough so that their faces were touching and he could nuzzle the other boy's nose. "And then you jumped me and I _really_ couldn't think of anything else."

Seifer shook his head. "Enough reminiscing. The point is, the other Hayner's probably happy to have a shitty life, not like he ever appreciated the one he had here. Everybody talks about how much nicer you are now, you know."

Hayner choked, nearly hitting their foreheads together. Seifer managed to sneak a hand between their faces to push him away before either of them got hurt. "People talk about me being _nice_? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The only thing stupider would be calling _you_ nice."

"I'm actually not kidding. Hayner, when you hit people it's because they deserve it. The other one? He'd do it for shits and giggles." Seifer removed his hand from Hayner's face and tugged on the other boy's chin until they were facing each other again. "Your friends adore you. Fuu and Rai adore you! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get _Fuu_ to like you? It's like we got a defective model of you before, and now we've got the one with all the five-star reviews."

"That is the dumbest metaphor I've ever heard," said Hayner, smirking.

Seifer flicked his nose. "Pretty sure it was a simile, but that's not the point. I just want to know that you love us as much as we all love you."

"I love _you_. The others can go fuck somebody else. I'm monogamous." Hayner jerked away, still smirking, before his boyfriend could flick him on the nose again. "Okay, but seriously, I would hate to go back there. I don't know what I'd do if this whole thing reversed."

"Pretty sure a universe jump only works one way, especially one this massive, so you're good."

Hayner sighed and closed his eyes in contentment as Seifer wrapped his arms around the younger boy's waist and pulled him closer. "D'you ever wonder how many times the little jumps happen? Like maybe you're kissing a different Hayner every day, but you would never know?"

"I try not to," said Seifer, his breath hot against the back of Hayner's neck. "I didn't understand most of that unit anyway, so it's not too hard to ignore it."

Hayner chuckled, then moaned when he felt Seifer's teeth against the same part of his neck. "Don't you _dare_ leave a mark, Mom will _kill_ me. And then you."

Seifer smirked—Hayner could feel it against his skin—and replaced the teeth with gentle lips. Hayner was just sliding into bliss when the sound of the front door slamming made him jump so hard he tumbled off the couch, dragging Seifer with him because the other boy's arms were still wrapped around him.

"Fuck, Hayner, you said your brother wouldn't be home till late!"


	2. Invisible

**Author's Notes: **Here's the next drabble in the series, which flashes back to Hayner's old life. Sorry there's not much Seifer, but I felt like this context was important. Also, I didn't want to post anything that spoiled the answer to the trivia, because no one has gotten it yet! (Sorry, it's not Cloud.)

So yeah, the next installment is actually already written, but it does spoil that answer, so I don't want to post it until someone's answered the trivia, or at least I've gotten a few more guesses. xD If you've forgotten, the question is: _Who is Hayner's brother?_ I'll give you a couple of hints - one, he's adopted (in the new universe). And two, there are actually two correct answers. (So... I'll actually give out two extra points if both are guessed!)

There are no warnings for this drabble, except that it's kind of depressing.

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><p><strong>Invisible<strong>

No one looked at Hayner anymore.

It had developed slowly. There was the catalyst—the thing with Roxas—Hayner didn't ever think about Roxas. Then his remaining friends drifted away from him, probably because he wasn't much to talk to after that. He stopped fighting with Seifer—stopped reacting at all, in fact—and as everyone knew, bullies didn't bother tormenting people who never showed that they were tormented. And no one else had ever really cared about the blond with the attitude except when Seifer brought attention to him, so it wasn't long after that before the entire school had basically forgotten he existed.

His parents didn't count; they'd never really treated him like a person in the first place.

There was one day when Hayner fully realized for the first time that he might as well be invisible. As the first signs of excitement spread through the school, a sense of dread started to pool in his stomach. The rumors said something about "Leonhart"—wasn't there a kid here with that name?—but it turned out they were talking about a man, possibly the kid's brother, though Hayner really couldn't care less at this point. The guy was military, and he was going to look over some of the students in their class to see who might be a potential fighter. Hayner wasn't quite sure why this made him nervous; maybe it was because he'd stopped fighting.

The scene played out vividly both in the moment and in his memory later: Sixty-eight students stood in a row. Some stood up straight and faced forward; others ignored the purpose of the meeting in favor of gossip. Hayner was somewhere in the middle, not talking to anyone, but not very focused either, at least not until Leonhart actually came into the room.

Shit, the guy looked _good_. It wasn't that Hayner felt sexually attracted to him or anything—he didn't really think about that sort of thing now that Roxas wasn't around to talk to about it—but he exuded a kind of quiet confidence as he started to walk down the row, an utterly serious expression on his face. Unconsciously, Hayner straightened his back a bit, following Leonhart's movements with his gaze as he waited almost impatiently for the man to reach the spot where he stood.

And then Leonhart was _there_, and—

The sensation of that pair of blue eyes traveling across his face without even seeing it was… uniquely unpleasant.

After that, Hayner didn't even try to exist.


	3. It's Real

**Author's Notes:** We're back in the new universe for this, but still in the past compared to the first entry. And although it wasn't posted in a review, an extra point goes to NinjaDai for getting one of the correct answers to the trivia. (: You'll see the answers in the vignette below.

Hm, I need a new question now. Let's see... _Who do you think will be the first person Hayner tells once he figures out the truth of what's happened to him?_ I plan on addressing this either in the next entry or the one after that.

Warnings: angst.

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><p><strong>It's Real<strong>

Hayner half expected Seifer to start laughing at him when he told the older boy he was seeing a counselor. The reaction he did receive was completely unexpected.

"Good," his boyfriend said savagely. "Maybe you can finally stop having those damn nightmares."

"I don't think talking to a counselor is just going to _end_ them," said Hayner, stuffing his hands into his pockets and scuffing his feet as they walked. He kept his eyes on the ground; he was still getting used to people actually _looking_ at him. Before he woke up in this strange alternate Twilight Town, no one had looked at him properly in a long time.

"Talking about your dreams is a good way to deal with them. And you _need_ to deal with this, Hayner. It's not healthy."

Hayner shook his head but didn't say anything. How could he tell Seifer that the dreams were actually memories, and that he still wasn't completely convinced this place was real?

"Hayner, look at me," said Seifer, stopping abruptly and seizing Hayner's shoulder. Startled, Hayner actually did look up to meet the older blond's gaze. "No, the counselor isn't going to just reach into your brain and stop you from having nightmares, but what they _can_ do is help you find the line between reality and fantasy again. Don't even try to tell me that isn't your problem," he added when Hayner opened his mouth to protest. "Every time you wake up from one of those dreams you spend ten minutes freaking out and telling me I'm not real."

"Hayner!" a new voice shrieked from somewhere close by. The next thing Hayner knew, a small body hit him at high speed and sent him crashing to the ground. He didn't even have to look at the spiky brown hair to recognize Sora.

"Sora, get off me," he grunted with what little air he could muster out of his lungs. The younger boy was still sitting on his chest.

"Leon's home!" Sora yelled in his ear. He rolled off the blond and tugged at his arm, trying and failing to pull him up. "Mom says to come home now 'cause he just got there like five minutes ago!"

"Let him go, spiky," Seifer ordered. "This is my job." Before Hayner quite knew what was happening, he was being lifted bodily by his boyfriend.

"Seifer, put me down!"

"He has to come home," Sora objected, glaring at Seifer. It was honestly kind of cute the way he folded his arms and pouted, or it would have been if the brunet was actually the eight-year-old he was acting like. At fifteen, it was just a little bit ridiculous.

Seifer set Hayner on his feet and dodged the fist the younger blond sent his way. "Guess you're not coming over tonight, huh?"

"No, I don't think so. Sandlot tomorrow?"

"Sure." Seifer leaned over and kissed the top of Hayner's head, making him feel a lot like the eight-year-old Sora was still pretending to be. "See you." He sauntered off, smirking as Sora promptly grabbed his adopted brother's arm and started to drag him toward the house.

"Sora, I'm coming, let go," said Hayner, but only half his mind was on his annoyance with Sora. He hadn't met Leon since waking up in this strange world, but he'd met him once back in the real one, the place he was used to. If Hayner closed his eyes, he could still see Leon's gaze sliding past him like he wasn't even there.

And now Leon was supposed to be his adopted brother. Would he even remember him? They'd talked on the phone once since Hayner arrived, but Hayner himself couldn't recall much of it, as it had occurred just days after he came and he was still having panic attacks every couple of hours over being stuck in a paradise he knew couldn't be real. Everyone here thought his real world was just a dream, but he knew better, and he was becoming increasingly convinced that Leon would know better too.

Hayner was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't realize Sora was trying to get his attention until the younger boy jabbed him in the stomach. "Ow! What was that for?" the blond demanded, focusing his eyes on his brother.

"We're home, dummy," said Sora. "Come on." He vanished through the front door.

With no small amount of trepidation, Hayner followed. Sora had apparently taken the kitchen by storm, because the blond could hear familiar voices laughing and Sora's excited chatter. Hayner opted for the slow and cautious approach, feeling like he was intruding on something personal.

His plan was ruined when Sora came barreling out of the kitchen to grab his arm again. "Hay-_ner_, what is wrong with you, come on!"

"Let me go!" Hayner barked, flushing a dangerous shade of red. He hated to lose his temper, but he was on edge right now, and Sora was beginning to grate on him.

The wonderful thing about Sora, though, was that he was completely immune to Hayner's anger. He let go of the blond after a quick push towards the kitchen, but the smile on his face didn't waver even a little.

Then Hayner was actually facing Leon for the first time since being dismissed by him in the real world. He bit his lip and dragged his gaze from Leon's feet up to his face.

Leon met his eyes, frowned, and held out a hand. "You look awful. C'mere, kiddo."

Hayner wasn't sure exactly what happened next. All he knew was that he was suddenly in Leon's arms, sobbing, as his older brother rubbed his back gently and murmured to him.

Hayner's thoughts spilled out into his sobs. "It's real, it's real, it's real…"


End file.
